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I can remember back to February 1, Mr. Speaker, and this is probably the best example I can give of the attempt

[Page: H3492]  GPO's PDF

   So in January we make our recommendations and we issue the report and it is all classified. Without discussing their actions at all with any member of the Cox committee, on February 1 Sandy Berger releases in a public format the White House's response to those 32 recommendations.

   Now, if that was not bad enough, Mr. Speaker, two days later we have a Committee on National Security brief that is open to Members only. The brief is being given to us by the Director of Central Intelligence, George Tenet. When he is finished his brief about emerging threats and we get to the question and answer session, I ask the DCI, the Director of Central Intelligence, a question.

   I said, ``Mr. Tenet, you know that the China Select Committee one month ago issued its report, because we gave you a copy. You are the intelligence leader for our country. In that report we made 32 recommendations for changes, but we also reached a very simple unanimous conclusion, and that conclusion, Mr. Tenet, you know is that America's national security has been harmed in a significant way by technology transfers to China.'' I asked Mr. Tenet, ``Do you agree with that assessment that the nine of us reached unanimously?"

   This was his answer, Mr. Speaker, two days after Sandy Berger gave the media an unclassified response to our recommendations. George Tenet said, ``Mr. Congressman, can I get back to you? I have not finished reading the report yet.''

   So here was the White House on February 1 issuing to selected media outlets unclassified response to a report that the Director of Central Intelligence two days later said he had not finished reading yet.

   Mr. Speaker, that is why we have problems with our national security. Tomorrow, the American people get to see for themselves. They get to hear about the warheads and the technology that we have lost. They get to hear about the neutron bomb. They get to hear about technology involving our space launch capability. They get to hear about the MIRVing nuclear warhead. They get to hear about military-industrial technology, high-performance computers.

   They get to hear about all of these things, and in the end, the administration is going to try to blame someone. They are either going to try to find a scapegoat within the administration who they can say caused these problems, as they are currently trying to do in the Department of Energy, trying to blame the labs, when some of the labs were doing an adequate job but others were not; or they are going to try to blame someone up in the Cabinet who can be the fall guy or gal who takes the blame for what has occurred.

   In the end, Mr. Speaker, I am convinced that the blame for our security lapses, as Harry Truman said, started at the top where the buck stops. The administration sets the policy.

   Now, some would say, well, the President cannot know everything, and this is true. Some of my CIA friends have told me that this is one of the first Presidents since Eisenhower who never sees the CIA's morning briefers, never sees them. He chooses not to see the briefers who are coming in to advise him of security concerns. The CIA does not even know if the President reads the daily brief provided to him. What the CIA analysts that I have talked to say is that they think that what Clinton gets is filtered through Madeleine Albright and Sandy Berger.

   Mr. Speaker, this is going to be a bad week in the history of America. The Kosovo crisis continues; Russia is being backed into a corner, to the point where they are now very antagonistic toward America; Bill Gertz comes out with a book called ``Betrayal'' which documents specific events that have occurred that have undermined our national security; and tomorrow, a select group involving nine Members of Congress, five Republicans and four Democrats, present a unanimous report and finding of what we found, that our national security has been harmed by our sale and transfer of technology to China.

   Many Members are going to use this as a platform to jump all over China and blame the Chinese and say they are an evil nation. I am going to be one, Mr. Speaker, that stands up and says, let us pause a moment.

[Time: 18:15]

   We need to engage China. Has China done some things that are wrong? Yes. We must deal with them. Does this mean we should isolate ourselves from China and consider all Chinese to be bad people? Absolutely not, because, in the end, Mr. Speaker, I am convinced that the bulk of the problems that we uncovered were caused by our own government. If we are stupid enough to allow another nation to buy sensitive technologies, then we cannot blame that nation. We blame our own policies that caused those technologies to be allowed to be sold for the first time.

   In our testimony and in public statements that have been on the record, so I am not revealing any sensitive information, the first director of our Defense Technology Agency called DTSA, whose responsibility it was to monitor applications for technology sales abroad, and which was decimated during this administration, Steve Brian said that in 1996 China had zero high performance computers. None. These are the high end supercomputers, high performance computers in the 8 to 10,000 MTOPS range, very capable computers that are only used for very elaborate research or for weapons design. China had none.

   Only two countries were manufacturing those high performance computers at that time, the U.S. and Japan, and both of our countries had an unwritten understanding that neither would sell these high performance computers to those nations which were or could become potential adversaries of the U.S.

   We relaxed our policy on exporting high performance computers, Mr. Speaker, and in two years, by 1998, China had acquired over 350 high performance computers.

   Now, we were told the State Department would monitor where they were being used, but they did not do that, because China would not let our State Department monitor where these computers went. We know now that many of them are being used by organs of the People's Liberation Army. They are being used for weapons design, they are being used for their nuclear programs, and those devices came from this country.

   Mr. Speaker, China did not steal those high performance computers; they bought them. They bought them because we changed our policies. We allowed Chinese entities to acquire technologies that up until the mid-1990s had been tightly controlled and monitored by those people who are watching out for our security concerns, now and in the 21st Century.

   Mr. Speaker, by Thursday of this week I expect to unveil two new documents, documents which I have been working on with a small group of people for the past four months. These two documents will not just focus on the China Select Committee, but will go beyond that.

   By Thursday of this week, it is my hope, if the graphic artists have completed the work, which I expect they will, to present two large charts, if you will, the visual presentation of what has happened in terms of technology transfer to China.

   The first chart, Mr. Speaker, which I have a rough sketch of, will trace every front company and operative arm of the People's Liberation Army that tried to acquire and did acquire technology in America, who the leaders were, what their ties are and were, and how they were able to get the approval to buy technology that is very sensitive and is being used by the Chinese military today, most of it with the support of our government.

   The second chart, Mr. Speaker, will be a depiction of a time-line, starting in 1993 and running through 1999. It will take every major technology area of concern that we have, encryption, high performance computers, military-industrial technology, space launch capability, nuclear weapons, it will take all of those technology disciplines and will track them through that 6 year time period, and it will list specific dates when actions took place in this administration to allow those technologies to

[Page: H3493]  GPO's PDF

   Mr. Speaker, in the end we have got to understand that we are now going to begin to pay the price for 7 years of gloating over our economy, 7 years of gloating over what was supposed to be world security, 7 years of pretending Russia and China were not potential problems, and rather than being up front and candid and transparent with Russia and China, we glossed over problems. We pretended things were not happening. We told Yeltsin we would help him get reelected. We did not want to offend Jiang Zemin. In doing that, we gave away technology that America is going to have to deal with for the next 50 years.

   Mr. Speaker, this is not a partisan issue. Democrats and Republicans in this body and the other body have been together on national security concerns. Democrats and Republicans have worked hand-in-hand over the years in protecting America's security.

   This battle, Mr. Speaker, is between the White House and the Congress. This White House has done things that this Congress has tried to stop and overturn.

   Starting tomorrow and continuing through the next year and a half, until the presidential elections and both parties attempt to win the White House, the American people will have to judge as to whether or not our security has been harmed, how extensively it has been harmed, what is going to be the remedy for us to deal with these concerns that we have relative to technology flowing into hands that eventually could be used against America.

   I want to caution our colleagues, Mr. Speaker, not to rush to snap judgments. We should not tomorrow when the China Select Committee reports come out and bash all Chinese citizens, or certainly not Chinese-Americans. Some of our most capable leaders in this country are Chinese-Americans. In fact, some of my best friends are Chinese-Americans, leaders in the academic world, the scientific world, the technology world. We must make sure that we let them know that they are solid Americans that we respect. We must not let this report come out and be an effort where Members of Congress come out and trash China and trash our relationship with those Chinese American leaders in our communities across this country.

   The problem in the end, Mr. Speaker, is with us. It is within our own government. We should not try to find any scapegoats. We should not try to blame industry. We should not try to just blame the Chinese. We should not just try to blame any one group.

   The bulk of the problems I think we will find were caused by our own actions, by our own decisions, to ease up on the control mechanisms, to make technology available for sale. This is not to say there are not cases of espionage, because there are, and they need to be dealt with, as in our laboratories and the network that the Chinese established. But if we are foolish enough to allow China to set up front companies and buy technology from us, who is wrong? The Chinese, who are abiding by our laws and buying technology in many cases that we sell them, or are we at fault for loosening our controls and allowing them to buy these technologies?

   The same thing is true with companies. American industry by and large wants to do the right thing, but

   if we send confusing signals, if we change the regulations, if we loosen up the standards, then most American industry should not be blamed when these very technologies are then sold abroad because we have allowed those practices to go on.

   As I said earlier, there are companies that deserve to be investigated, and two are under criminal investigation right now. But I would hope tomorrow and for the rest of this week as we get ready to celebrate the Memorial Day holiday that we as a Nation step back and begin to seriously consider our national security.

   It has not been a high focus for the past 7 years. We have been lulled into a false sense of complacency. The economy is going strong, people are working, inflation is low, unemployment is low, and we have been convinced that the world is safe. Now, all of a sudden, we wake up and see Russia backed into a corner, China involved in technologies that we never thought they should have, North Korea deploying long and short range missiles that now threaten not just our territories, but the mainland of the U.S., Iran-Iraq developing medium range systems with the help of Russia, India and Pakistan saber rattling with nuclear warheads and medium-range missiles.

   Where did they get the weapons from, Mr. Speaker? Where? We saw China supplying Pakistan with the M-11 missiles. We saw China supplying Pakistan with ring magnets. We saw China supplying Pakistan with the technology for the nuclear furnaces. We saw Russia supplying India with technology.

   Why are we surprised? All of a sudden we come with the realization, we have problems in the world, and we have not dealt with those problems in a fair, open and honest way, in spite of tremendous efforts by Republicans and Democrats in this body and the other body.

   It is time to end the spin, Mr. Speaker. It is time for this administration to end the nauseating spin, the spin doctors at the White House, who want to spin everything, to make it look as if they have no role to play, just as they did when they lost the Congressional elections and did not want to accept any responsibility in the White House. It was all the fault of those Members of Congress who were out of touch.

   It is about time this administration and this President understand that once in awhile he needs to accept the responsibility for his actions and the collective actions of this administration.

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